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Google has agreed to buy 100,000 tonnes of carbon credits from Indian startup Varaha, its first such deal with a carbon project in India and its largest involving biochar produced from biomass (also called horticultural coal or “black gold” for soil). .
Credits for the takeover deal will be delivered to Google by 2030 from Varaha’s industrial biocoal project in the western Indian state of Gujarat, the two companies said on Thursday.
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. So far, the New Delhi-based startup is the only Indian company to be listed on the carbon removal standard and registry Puro. Earth.
Biochar is produced in two ways: artisanal and industrial. The artisanal method is community-driven, where farmers burn crop residues in conical containers without the use of machinery. In contrast, industrial biochar is produced using large reactors that process 50-60 tons of biomass per day.
Varaha’s project will produce industrial biochar from an invasive plant species, Prosopis Juliflorausing its pyrolysis plant in Gujarat. The invasive species affects plant biodiversity and has taken over pastures used for raising livestock. Varaha will harvest the plant and seek to restore native grasslands in the region, company co-founder and CEO Madhur Jain said in an interview. Once the biochar is produced, the third-party auditor will submit its report to Puro.Earth to generate points.
Although biochar is considered a long-term solution to carbon removal, its durability can vary between 1,000 and 2,500 years, depending on production and environmental factors.
For context: Carbon credits are related to how long carbon can be permanently removed from the atmosphere by offsetting emissions with sustainable activities. Greenhouse gases have extremely long-term impacts on the atmosphere, up to hundreds or thousands of years, so any effective carbon credit program must promise a similarly long period of carbon removal. “Persistence” here refers to how long carbon remains stored in the soil before being released back into the atmosphere.
Jain told TechCrunch that Varaha tried using different raw materials and different parameters inside its reactors to find the best combination to achieve durability of nearly 1,600 years.
The startup has also built a digital monitoring, reporting and verification system, integrating remote sensing to track biomass availability. It even has a mobile app that takes geo-tagged, time-stamped images to geographically document activities, including biomass mining and biochar field applications.
With its first project, Varaha last year processed at least 40,000 tons of biomass and produced 10,000 tons of biochar.
“Even if we do not develop our skills, we have already reached a level where we can successfully process 40,000 tons of biomass per year, which means we can easily reach the target of 100,000 tons of biochar by 2030,” Jain said.
He added that each ton of biocarbon generates 2.5 carbon credits, and the startup aims to reach one million credits per year by 2030.
Carbon credits increase in importance as companies generate greenhouse gas emissions, and each credit represents a reduction of one ton of carbon dioxide. By purchasing carbon credits, companies can support sustainable projects in an effort to offset their emissions.
Google set a new record with this deal, as the last significant biochar carbon removal transaction was made by Senken and Exomad Green, including 81,600 tons of biocarbon carbon credits between 2025-2028. Still, Google’s deal with Varah is minuscule compared to the tech giant’s carbon emissions.
In 2023, the search giant had total greenhouse gas emissions of approx 14.3 million tons of CO₂ equivalent (gases)13% more than a year earlier. The continued growth of artificial intelligence development is predicted to worsen these emissions figures over time, although Google said it is striving to reach net zero emissions in all its operations and value chains by 2030.
“Biochar is a promising approach to carbon removal because it has the potential to be scaled up worldwide, using existing technology, with positive side effects on soil health,” Randy Spock, Google’s head of carbon removal, said in a statement.
Varaha currently runs 14 technological carbon projects in India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Kenya. The startup says it has also switched more than 100,000 smallholder farmers to sustainable practices, helping to eliminate more than 2 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions. A total of $12.7 million was raised, incl 8.7 million dollars in Series A last year and is backed by funds including RTP Global, Omnivore, Orios Venture Partners, Octave Wellbeing Economy Fund IMC Pan Asia Alliance Group and Japan’s Norinchukin Bank.
